A Soldier's Life - 163 - Gnolls, Bunnies, and Bears, Oh My!

Chapter 163: Gnolls, Bunnies, and Bears, Oh My!

Raelia tentatively picked up the large sapphire necklace, “No, I don’t know what any of these items do. But they are all clearly artifacts.” She turned the sapphire necklace in her hand, studying the fairies and birds on the chain, shaking her head in disbelief. “This jewel is perfect. It must be worth…” She didn’t voice her opinion and put it down to pick up the large pink stone ring.

She studied the large pink stone ring artwork and muttered, “It is beautiful.” She stepped away, clearly tempted. “Do you have any other artifacts?” I cocked my eyebrow to let her know I was not going to share my secrets.

“No, we have just picked them up in the rooms we have cleared.” I picked up the sapphire necklace and the pink stone ring.

“From my experience, dungeons don’t work that way. Even old dungeons. Maybe one in five rooms will have an artifact, and one in three creatures will yield an essence.” Her tone was accusatory, as if I was keeping a secret from her. “Every gnoll gave you a major essence.” She stated flatly. I already told her the dungeon had not been delved into for centuries as an explanation, and I wasn’t going to tell her my collector was special.

I shrugged, ignoring her plea for me to explain. “If you don’t know what they do, I will put them away.” Both items vanished, just leaving the rings. Raelia looked longingly at my empty hands. I guess all women, no matter their race, liked jewelry. “Can you get the thermal stone?”

I had let her carry it in her backpack. I placed both rings on the stone and channeled aether into the stone. As the rock became red, tiny spells formed on the inside of the rings. I had no chance of reading them, but I hoped my trick was going to work. I focused on one ring at a time, turning the stone with a knife three hundred and sixty degrees while I focused.

Seeing me work, Raelia asked in astonishment, “You can see that and understand the runes!” She distracted me, and I turned the stone again, studying each ring again before answering her.

“No. I was just looking.” I knocked the rings off the stone to cool. Raelia picked both of them up immediately before I could stop her.

She said haughtily, “Enchanted rings do not get hot in fire. They are extremely difficult to destroy. You would need to toss them in a volcano at a ley line nexus to melt them down. Or perhaps have an ancient dragon melt them with its fire breath.” She was too smug with her knowledge. I held out my hand, and she huffed and dropped the rings into it.

“Maveith, can you keep an eye on me while I sleep for a bit?” I asked the goliath, who was setting up his bed.

Raelia scoffed, “We are in a safe room. Nothing can attack you in here.” Her voice trailed off toward the end, realizing I wanted to be protected from her.

Maveith moderated, “I understand Eryk. We will work on preparing a meal for when you wake.” I then brought out all the ingredients that he wanted, and he set up with Raelia on the far side of the room. I produced the weasel pelt and my griffon down pillow to get comfortable. I laid down with the dreamscape amulet in my hand, hidden from Raelia’s sight.

Entering the dreamscape, I spent a good amount of time playing a game of therapeutic fetch with Oscar. I had to ignore Konstantin and the others as I focused on creating the rings: one silver and one gold.

I started with the silver ring from the frost salamander, enlarging it to be ten feet across so I could stand in the middle of it. It didn’t even need to heat the ring for the spell forms to pop on the ring in glowing blue script. I couldn’t believe it had actually worked. My subconscious had been able to read the details in the real world and replicate them here.

The dreamscape amulet was much more powerful than I thought. I had gotten the idea as it seemed to recreate books from Earth in perfect detail, which I had read a long time ago. Now, it was just the problem of figuring out what the rings did from the books Castile left behind. Three hours later, I was still working on the silver ring.

As best I could decipher from some of the spell forms that matched in the ring from Castile’s books, the ring gave the wearer a resistance to cold. How much resistance I couldn’t figure out. Maybe the ring was a reward for defeating the blizzard lizard so you would be immune to its breath of cold the next time you fought it. It would be useful, especially if we had to leave the dungeon and traverse the ruins in the snow. Should we risk trying to get another one?

I repeated the process with the gold ring next. I found this ring near the abandoned merchant wagons when we took the old trade road after the heavy rains had taken the barge transport away. The runes here were much more complex.

After hours of studying and comparing, the best I could figure out was that the ring allowed the wearer to influence another person’s disposition positively. How powerful it was, I didn’t know. It made sense that a trader would be wearing such a ring. I exited the dreamscape and was welcomed by the smell of roasted meat. I had gotten lost in the work and hadn’t tracked how long I had slept. “Maveith, how long was I asleep?”

Maveith looked over, and I could see the two had been playing checkers, “Six hours, maybe a little more.”

Raelia huffed and announced loudly, “Maveith, can you watch me while I sleep and make sure I am not molested.” She went into the stone alcove across from mine and made to get some sleep.

I ignored the upset elf and went to get some food. It was a beef stew with potatoes, onions, and bear meat. It was really good, but after a large bowl, I found myself full. Raelia was on her side with her back to us, and I assumed she was sleeping. “Maveith, this ring will keep you warm in the cold.” Raelia twitched, and I assumed she was not actually sleeping. “See if it will resize to your finger.”

Maveith took the ring and was amazed, “It is working! The ring is getting larger.” Raelia pretended to stretch and rolled over, but her eyes appeared to be closed. It took Maveith nearly ten minutes to slide the ring up his finger. It thinned out a little, conserving mass, but eventually, he said, “I can feel it working. The air around me feels slightly warmer.”

After being trapped in the freezing city for so long, I hadn’t noticed, but the dungeon corridors and room were on the cooler side. Raelia’s eyes opened slowly, and with some accusation in her voice, she spoke, “I thought you said you couldn’t read the tiny spell forms on the ring.”

“And I thought you were sleeping?” We stared at each other for a bit before the elf rolled over, putting her back to us again, and tried to sleep.

“Maveith, I am going to scout the next room. Will you be safe waiting here with the elf?” I asked half-seriously. The elf pulled her bedroll tight around herself but didn’t respond to my jest.

Maveith was fingering the silver ring, and looked up at me and then the elf. “I think I will be fine. Can I have the rest of the stew?” I nodded, and he eagerly grabbed the pot to finish it off.

I walked the corridor cautiously and came to a T intersection. I went right, and the corridor curved right for a good long while. I finally arrived at another room. The room was not large, maybe sixty feet across. A hilly range of dark gray and black stone made up the floor, and the room had a twilight feel to it, with less light than normal coming from the ceiling. I remained vigilant but didn’t see any movement in the room. I left the room without risking entry.

It was a long walk back to the intersection and the other corridor. I hoped that we could find Castile soon as I wanted to avoid spending eternity in the Shimmering Labyrinth. The other corridor was much shorter, coming to a room with a hilly meadow covered in grass and small flowers, maybe seventy feet across. A fat rabbit stared at me as I approached the room. As I got closer, the rabbit darted into a burrow, and a massive bear appeared from over the mound. It furiously dug in the soil, spewing earth everywhere, trying to reach the rabbit.

The dark gray coat of the bear shifted with muscle as it dug, but it was not as large as the fire bear’s. Taking a chance that it was the only creature in the room, I stepped in and removed its chest cavity while its back was turned to me. I paused just inside the room, listening for other creatures. The fat rabbit popped up on the hill to see what was happening. It ears at attention; it studied me. It abruptly ducked into another burrow.

I moved farther into the room and spotted the stone chest, causing me to relax. I was about to step toward it and paused. Would the dungeon ever trick me with a reward chest to make me lower my guard? I proceeded cautiously into the room and saw no less than three rabbits poking their heads up. I shattered the stone and took the eight silver coins, a potion of greater healing, and a potion of stamina.

So far, every bear I had killed had rewarded a greater healing potion in this dungeon. Was this a coincidence, or would it continue? A dungeon greater healing potion was valuable. An alchemist’s major healing potion was worth fifty gold but had a shelf-life. Dungeon potions had no such limitation from what I had been told. I was thinking that maybe it was time to try farming for this healing potion since the safe room was just a ten-minute walk away.

I think this was a stone bear. The bear’s hide was coarse and difficult to cut. I harvested some meat with an elven dagger, which I claimed was from the armory. It was not Raelia’s, as I told her I wouldn’t use it. I was waiting for enough aether to retrieve the collector, stacking up the best cuts as I went.

I was not surprised when I harvested an apex strength essence. I was slightly disappointed, though, as the apex essence probably meant no one from the company had reached this room yet. The rabbits watched me from a safe distance the entire time, their instincts telling them I was the new apex predator.

Walking the smaller chamber, I only saw grass, clovers, and small wildflowers for the rabbit’s diet. I considered exploring further but had already been gone for almost four hours by my estimation, so I stored everything in my dimensional space and returned to the safe room. Maveith looked up as I returned and told Raelia, “Told you he was okay. Eryk can take care of himself.”

Raelia replied quickly, “I wasn’t worried. I was just asking if we should go and check on you.”

I ignored the exchange and told them what I found, “The corridor forked. There is a simple meadow room with a stone bear.” I produced fifty pounds of bear meat next to Raelia’s bed. “There are some quick rabbits in the room, but I could not catch any of them. Maybe we can get some with a bow. I didn’t enter the room at the end of the other fork. It had uneven rock terrain, but I saw nothing moving.”

“You killed a stone bear by yourself?” Raelia said, astonished, but then added, “Of course you did.” Like it was not a big deal, then irritated, she moved her bedding to make sure the blood coming from the meat didn’t reach it.

Maveith looked disappointed, “This was all you harvested?” I added the kidneys and liver to the pile, and he cheered up. Not that I would be eating either.

Next, I handed Maveith the apex strength essence, “It is a strength essence, Maveith. Take it next. We are going to clear the gnoll room again after the dungeon restocks it.”

Raelia’s eyes jealously watched the essence as it went from my hand to Maveith’s and then directly into his mouth. “Why are we fighting the gnolls again?” Her tone was challenging.

“Because I said so,” I sat down and relaxed near my bed. Maveith gave me a look to be nicer, so I added, “Partly for the essences but mostly because of the potatoes and the water from the stream.” That explanation seemed to placate the griffin rider. “Maveith, I got two potions as well. A greater healing and stamina. Keep them accessible, and you can give the elf one of the lesser healing potions.”

“Maveith already gave me back one of my healing potions. A greater dungeon healing potion?” Raelia said, suddenly highly interested and moving closer. 

I frowned at Maveith, but I suppose it was his right to give the lesser healing potion to the elf. I just wished he had told me. “Yes. So far, the reward chests in this dungeon for bears seem to give a greater healing potion every time. I thought for a minute; that was the fifth time I had killed a dungeon bear, and the reward chest had a greater healing potion each time.”

“You have five greater dungeon healing potions! They are worth five hundred each!” Raelia exclaimed.

“No. That is the only one left. Maveith got one, Konstantin got one, and you got two,” I said, doing the math.

“You gave me two greater healing potions?!” She exclaimed in shock.

“Yeah, you looked like a dragon’s chew toy, and I only wanted to give you one, but Maveith insisted you needed another to survive,” I replied. If Maveith was interested in the elf, the least I could do was make him look good.

Raelia was quiet for a moment before she whispered, “Thank you.” But I don’t know if she was directing it at me or the goliath.

We returned to the gnoll chamber a half day later to find the eight gnolls restored. Raelia was able to get six in a single fireball, which made the room extremely easy. It was time to start farming the bears and gnolls.